City of Lies: Neutral/Evil Campaign

This will be a Neutral/Evil campaign set in and around the Faerūn city of Luskan in the Forgotten Realms universe.
Starting character levels are 12, no gestalt. Check the forum for more information on character creation. This will be a long term campaign.
Accepting applications for neutral or evil aligned characters to fill the following positions: Ensign, Sergeant, Corporal and Corp First Class. Squad leader has already been chosen. Be creative, we are looking for interesting characters.
Beware though, this game will follow the guidelines of this site. Having a slightly sick and twisted character is encouraged, but postings will have to leave out the gory details. Remember, insinuation can do more than explicit details.

Game Description:

Invitation

1392 is a time of great upheaval in the city of Luskan. Following the daring raid by an army of mercenaries led by Lord Brambleberry of Waterdeep in the autumn of 1376 DR, Luskan as it was known was destroyed. The Arcane Brotherhood was annihilated, the Hosttower of the Arcane destroyed, and the five Pirate Kings fallen. After several years of infighting, five new pirate kings have arisen to take up the mantels of their predecessors. Together, these five kings rule the city, each controlling a portion of the city, but meeting as a council to decide matters on a city wide scale. While working together, the kings are constantly infighting, vying for power.

Luskan is a city of pirates, thieves, and outlaws, now even more so than ever before. Almost all races walk the streets of Luskan openly and those that don't walk openly walk in the shadows.

During this time of upheaval, you joined a group known as The Wolf Pack. The founding members of your group have since passed and you are what is left. This time of chaos had been good to your group and you are on decent standings with all five pirate kings who you have done work for in the past.
One day, an unusual invitation arrives.

"Posting Date, 8th of Kythorn, 1392 DR.
The Wolf Pack is cordially invited to the residence of High Captain Arak'al of Luskan for a business proposition. Please bring the tools of your trade. You will be paid the amount of 100 gp just for attending. More information will be provided upon arrival. My master does so hope you will attend.

Signed, Dallion Hammerstock
First Mate"

OOC

This is my first game as a DM, but I am getting some help from MadHatter. Be patient with me, but I hope we will have a lot of fun together.

There was a slight error in the rank post he made. I was not finished setting up the ranks for the game. No big deal. I will be playing the Squad Leader, or LT. So the following positions are up for grabs. We are looking for 4 people in this game, but will expect six if need be.

Now if 4 people get accepted, they will be ranked as such. Ensign, Sergeant, Lance Corp and Lance Corp.
If we get 6 people, then just add another Sergeant and Lance Corp to the list.

Now for all character creation and house rule info take a look at the forum. Rank is really just flavor for the game, as everyone will be playing the same level character. Rank will just determine the leadership structure and pay rate for missions and assignments. This game will be light Military in nature. Focus more on roleplaying and loose adventuring based on assignments. As our group, Wolf Pack Militia, is a special forces kind of Merc unit who gets to pick and choose which assignment we take.

I'm game o3o want me to toss some more... outlandish character ideas your way? such as awakened animals? or stick to things like the archer fighter or rogue assassin, or the anthropomorphic creatures in Savage Species

1) The Feral template from Savage Species. I usually rule that the tables go by racial HD (as the table heading says) and therefore humans/elves/most normal races get the benefit only of the first line of both. Is that how it works here?

2) I see that the Spell Compendium is not listed as an acceptable source. May I ask why? It fixes a lot of broken spells after all (crack open Complete Divine and look at Miasma. 'nuff said)

I will try to field as many questions as I can here in Foil's absence.

Kurinitus
You have to send Foil a complete info of the homebrew class and run it by him. More then likely no though.\

Shub
Neither one of me or Foil have Spell Compendium. So hard to use a source we can't reference. As well as trying to keep the books to a minimum so it is easier on a Newbie GM. The feral template works the way you think with the tables going by Racial HD.

ThyWolf
Stick to less outlandish characters please. We have a newbie GM here so you can understand the need for keep things a bit simple.

Level 12 characters are all NCO's or lower? Is this a mercenary company in the Blood War or something?

Going by FR standards, characters of that level would be qualified to lead their own mercenary companies. There's no way in hell a level 12 wizard would sign up to be a grunt when he could make hundreds of gold pieces just teleporting cargo.

I'm not knocking your mercenary company idea, it's just that mid-level characters just aren't low-level soldiers, unless there's some kind of wierd Malazan Book of the Fallen/Bridgeburners thing going on. They're too valuable for that. Only an idiot would put people with that kind of raw power in such a menial role without a specific purpose, and there's really no reason for someone who can command the sort of cash that someone with that level of talent to put up with such treatment.

The setting is all Foil's idea. This is not Forgotton Realms so don't read into anything in those books for this setting. We are a semi independent Merc Unit working for the Five Pirate Kings. We have rose to this rank within their Army and are now able to branch out on our own so to speak. We only take the jobs we want and our paid handsomely for it. We are the best Merc Unit in the city.

You will see much more as the Game progresses WhiteKnight. A lot of the roles and reasons for us, will come to light after the game begins.

As far as rank goes everyone will be at least a Lance Corporal. I am not sure how Foil wants to give out Ranks, as he will be assigning a rank to you once accepted. I only know there will only be one Ensign. I don't know what the Blood Wars is, but this is Foil's homebrewed world he is creating.

The Blood War is the Big Planar War between Demons and Devils (The angels get involved sometimes, too.) The point I was making is that the Blood War is one of the few places where that ranking schema for characters of that level would be appropriate.

Like I said - I'm not saying it can't work. I'm just saying that a level 12 character is the equivalent of anything from a couple of squads to a sizeable portion of an army, depending on who and what they are. Having them all be in one squad represents a significant investment of strength - having them all be that low in rank looks really, really strange.

Let me put it this way - in bog standard D&D, a person with 1-2 levels in *any* PC class would probably qualify as an NCO. Anyone higher than that is getting into officer/specialist territory. And given that full spellcasters power up on a geometric curve...

This is doubly true given that we're all evil or neutral - if everyone in the command structure is higher level than us, why have we not conquered the city yet? If they aren't, why haven't we, uh "promoted" ourselves? And if level 12 really *is* suitable level for infantry grunts in this world, does that mean the baseline for power is that high? Because that's pretty terrifying. It means we've got hobos with the power of archmagi running around, and anyone of significant power is well into epic levels.

Like I said, the Malazan Book of the Fallen is partially built on just such a conceit. I'm just wondering what the reason is.

The Rank is just a loose guideline. It doesn't mean much. It is just there for Flavor. It is not 100% realistic anyways. Considering in the Middle Ages, which is when D&D takes place, the culture it takes place in, Not Europe or any notable part of our history, has no ranking structure. There was not really a military rank to begin with in those times. During the Dark Ages is when it started to develop mostly.

Anyways just make a character and have fun. The rank is really Arbitrary flavor to add to the character.